Vitamin D levels among adults in a tertiary care hospital in Wayanad

Abstract

Background: Vitamin D insufficiency affects nearly 50% of the population worldwide. Inadequate serum Vitamin D levels are associated with multiple conditions such as secondary hyperparathyroidism and increased fracture risk. Multiple studies carried out also showed a correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and occurrence of diabetes and hypertension (HTN) in these deficient individuals. This study aimed to determine the serum levels of Vitamin D among patients frequenting a tertiary care hospital in Wayanad and the associations with sunlight exposure, gender, dietary factors, and diabetes and HTN. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: Hundred patients were randomly selected from the outpatient department over 6 months and asked to fill up a questionnaire. Vitamin D analysis was done by Elecsys Vitamin D total assay. Statistical analysis used was IBM SPSS statistics for Windows, version 20.0: Association between continuous data was determined using t-test/Mann–Whitney test depending on normality of data and association between categorical variables was determined using Pearson's Chi-square test. Results: Fifty-seven percentage of patients had Vitamin D deficiency. Significantly lower values of Vitamin D were seen among women. Conclusions: The median Vitamin D levels in men were 22.785 ng/ml and 17.81 ng/ml in women. No association was established between >1 h of daily sunlight exposure, the prevalence of diabetes and HTN, and daily consumption of dairy products and Vitamin D deficiency.